This Chinese New Year, crack open fortune cookies with notes created by you

It is amazing how something as humble as the fortune cookie connects two super powers in the East and West. Though there is some debate about whether the cookie was made in Japan or America first, many agree that the concept of sending messages through food started with the Chinese mooncakes. That said, we’d like to introduce Fortune Cookie India, a 15-year-old Mumbai-based brand whose cookies have not only graced the tables of Chinese restaurants in hotels like the Taj and Hilton, but also managed to reach customers in the very country where the cookie originated — America. In fact, baker Zyros Z Zend’s cookies have also made their way into a New York Times picture video on fortune cookies.
Cookie tale
Zend’s fascination with the cookie started aboard Carnival Cruise Lines, where he worked as a baker. When he returned to Mumbai to join his 70-year-old family-run bakery, Yazdani, he decided to try his luck with the fortune cookie too. “I bought a machine to make the cookie at a time when the cookie was not even heard of here,” says Zend, who has tried fortune cookies all over the world, since. “The American version is bland,” he insists, adding that he decided to make his version rich and buttery — perfect for the Indian palate — and has never had to turn back.
Get creative
Currently supplying to a host of star hotels in the country, Fortune Cookie India also retails through Godrej Nature’s Basket in cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Kochi. And Zend is happy to deliver his cookies to Chennai, provided you have a minimum order of 90. He also points out that Chinese New Year is not the only time his cookies are relevant. “I once had an order from a lady who made me put specific tasks inside the cookies instead of messages. She gave her husband one task a day through these cookies,” shares Zend, who has also made cookies with personalised messages, jokes and even diamond rings inside them, for proposals. So what’s your cookie going to say?
Priced from Rs 14.56 and Rs 21.84 (eggless) per piece onwards. Details: fortunecookie.in